We Survive
by Virgins-and-Surgeons
Summary: Our lives have ended, but we are not gone." Even in death, their pasts will not disappear. The former lives of the Shinigami, Arrancar and living humans, all shed light upon; some recalled fondly, some regretted, all remembered.
1. Aizen, Ulquiorra

"Our lives have ended, but we are not gone." Even in death, their pasts will not disappear. The former lives of the Shinigami, Arrancar and living humans. Major crossover

It's oddly, darkly hilarious to him, in all honesty. Of all the situations they could have ended up in, they end up in this particular one. A million to one chance that it would work out this way, and it does.

Aizen sits in his throne, the one he has stolen from under the King of Hollows, and he smiles in a genteel way as a thin, robotic-mannered man strides into his (_his_; no longer Barragan's, no longer the domain of hollows, but **his**) throne room and kneels like the pawn he knows he is.

In respect to their former roles in one another's past lives, it's very, very ironic.

"Ulquiorra," Aizen states his Cuatra's name without honorifics, because he doesn't need to bother and doesn't care, really. The Arrancar raises his head, and his vivid green eyes are empty, devoid of humanity and interest and all life. They may be green, but they're also coal black. When they first met, Aizen himself was floored at seeing the man (once his hollow mask had been removed, of course). He didn't let it on, didn't show it, but he instantly knew that this man, this pale recluse with his dark hair and his empty eyes, recognized him. Sosuke, Ulquiorra; their new names were of no importance. They knew one another, and they knew one another well.

None of the other hollows could ever know. They would never, ever know. Not because it was dangerous for them to know, but because it was a bit of an old shame for Sosuke Aizen; this man he had killed in previous times, but he had done it in a singularly cowardly manner, and even as he looked into Ulquiorra Cifer's eyes with no twinge of regret, remorse, or any emotion at all aside from smugness, he knew that if Ulquiorra could hate, then he would hate Aizen.

" Ulquiorra," He begins, nonchalantly, and if any others were to hear him speak to Ulquiorra like this (say, for instance, Gin or Tosen or Grimmjow), then they may be confused about how a living god could speak so informally, so easily, to a mere foot soldier like Ulquiorra. He was a good foot soldier, a very good one, but he was still just that: A lowly soldier. Ulquiorra stares blankly at Aizen, but there is knowledge, wisdom in the black depths of his emotionless eyes as he listens to Aizen.

"Ulquiorra, do you ever wonder how it happened like this?" Aizen asks, point blank, and Ulquiorra merely stares.

"How it happened like this?" He mimics Aizen's words, but there is no emotion behind them. He can't summon up something like emotion; doesn't have the capability to do that. "I suppose that it was fate, Aizen-sama."

"Fate?" Aizen asks, and almost laughs. "Fate is an excuse, Ulquiorra."

It's almost odd for him to see the sallow, pale black-haired man with no deep rings under his eyes, or without a mouthful of something sweet. It's very, very odd to see him sitting normally in a chair. But Aizen is exactly where he needs to be, where he deserves to be; on a throne. There is no notebook in his palm this time, no black-cloaked monster looming over his shoulder with an enormous smile and distinct, annoying _hyuk hyuk hyuk_ laughter. There is only the tool of complete hypnosis strapped to his hip.

"Possible. But something decided it to be this way," Ulquiorra rebukes in monotone, rising to his feet. He may be subservient to this man, this total and complete monster that he's battled twice and lost to, twice, but he's no slave. He wasn't in life, and he will not be that in death. He will not bow down to a madman's will simply for the sake of bowing. And Aizen knows that, and he knows it well.

"Dismissed," Aizen waves him away, but a once magnificent detective is already walking towards the door, stuffing his hands in his pockets and hunching over ever so slightly, before straightening up. _Habit_. He needs to break himself of it, the same way that a mass murderer sitting in a throne at his back needs to break himself of that horrific habit of gloating when he knows he's won.

Light Yagami may be the ruler of all three realms, but L Lawliet will never shatter for him.


	2. Ichimaru

He doesn't hate. He's never been a hateful man, not really. He's just…well, he's only a little bit mad. _Cra-zy_, as they call him.

Gin Ichimaru leans in the shadows of his room, his chin supported by long, spidery fingers, his hidden eyes focusing on nothing. He runs his tongue along the inside of his cheeks again, for about the one millionth time today; it's a horrible habit, but it's one that he'll never really be able to break. It's funny; he had always sort of thought that his afterlife would be spent in Hell, or wherever evil men were supposed to be sent to. No, he wakes up a silver haired child in some hellish Japanese afterlife.

It's funny!

It makes him laugh. Oh, how it makes him laugh. When there's something he just can't help but laugh at, it's something wondrous and horrific; a bloody battlefield with a couple of corpses clutching one another close in death, or some foolish person, a boy, a man, a woman, it never matters, trying to become justice (he adores Tosen, really, because he's just so amazingly insane that it's hilarious), even watching one child kill another like a wild animal. They're horrible things that he laughs at.

He doesn't laugh very often in this life, but when he does, it chills any sane man to the bone. Because when Gin Ichimaru laughs, they're not chuckles, or the snickering you'd expect from the man. No…no. These laughs are shrieks. They're like hyena's chattering, if the hyena were rabid and mad and tainted with the purest of evil. There is exactly one person in this world, somewhere, anywhere, that would know that laughter and kill him for it. He knows that person, he knows him well, and even in this afterlife, he held that person near and dear to his heart.

That man (boy, he should say) is the only one to ever, ever hear Gin Ichimaru's laughter. Not even his Rangiku had heard him laugh before; thank the lord for small mercies. Rangiku is a very special case, actually. He never thought that he would ever desire a woman for her personality, but Rangiku Matsumoto is different. She's almost as chaotic as he is, and that's gorgeous. She understands why he left with Aizen. But, she's staying behind. She stays in the same place as that nemesis-slash-friend of his.

And that man is one that wants him stone cold dead for the second time.

Ichimaru sometimes wishes he could go back to the old life. He loved it. It was his calling, his meaning in existence, the only reason he dragged himself out of bed every morning. Sometimes, Gin really does ponder going back. Just, one day, going berserk all over again.

But he can't do that. Because if he does that, then he probably won't ever get to meet his favorite enemy again, in this afterlife. He doesn't really care about Aizen's plans for ruling creation. He never cared. In fact, having a real, predictable motive really bugs him.

He wants chaos again. He wants anarchy. He wants to smell gasoline in his clothes and he wants to have dark red stains all over his clothes, and he wants to fill his pockets with knives and be a dangerous man again. He wants to dye his hair green again. And what he wants, more than anything else, is to start sending the message again.

_Chaos is a beautiful thing. More beautiful than any sight, sweeter than any music, more seductive than any woman, more delicious than any food. Chaos is adoration._

He wants to hear screams and feel flames lick at his body again; he wants to wire bombs to his chest and walk into a deathtrap. He wants to live as if he were seeking death for the second time.

He just wants. And the want never leaves him, not even for a moment.

Shinso hums under his fingertips, and for the time innumerable, he lifts his zanpakutou and places it in his mouth, the tip of the blade pressing hard into the wall of his cheek. It's not the same without the scars. Blood runs onto his tongue and for a moment, he decides to do it.

It passes. He removes Shinso from his mouth, sheathing the blade again with his own blood on his tongue. No. He has to _wait_. He has to wait for his Batty to show up again.

As he stares out the window at the vast plains of Hueco Mundo, he lets out a barking laugh. It's so damn funny that he can't help himself, and he lets out a cacophony of hysterical shrieks, before they fade into silence and he is Gin Ichimaru again, staring boredly out the window and his head filled with screams and flames and gasoline once again.

Sometimes, the Joker just can't help but laugh at it all again.


	3. Byakuya, Ichigo

Sometimes, he just wishes he could go back. But not very often.

Byakuya Kuchiki is a noble man. Impassionate; he remains what he was in the previous life. Though he does not have a majestic fur on his shoulder, or an annoying mongrel brother to slap down now and then, little about his life has changed.

He still has an assistant that turns out to be useless at times, though this assistant is actually capable of fighting near his own level, though if he really cut loose, he'd blow Renji away. But restraint is a noble virtue to have, and it's something he's always lived with. He still has a child, though in this time the child's hair is pink and she has red eyes, that takes pleasure in clinging to him when she isn't near a giant monster, though this monster walks on two legs instead of four and wears bells in its hair. He still has to deal with people that he would very much rather kill and be done with, though he has much more restraint nowadays than he did in that past life.

He still has a petulant young man that he wants to slay. Nothing really changes.

Byakuya Kuchiki sits at his desk, for once in his long afterlife ignoring his paperwork, and he stares out the window at the blue sky outside. He remembers his past, though it is becoming hazy nowadays, and he wonders if he would have ever believed that he could have loved if he could tell himself this in that past life. He would have scoffed, Byakuya knows he would have, and dismissed it as insanity.

It did happen, however. Somehow.

Hisana happened. His dear, sweet Hisana. He misses her so dearly. All he can do to cope is to greedily keep her sister, her lookalike, all to himself, and guard her from that orange-headed thug that he still wants to kill.

He offhandedly touches Senbonzakura's hilt, and wonder if she is ever jealous of the coveting he still has for his younger brother's sword. He cannot quell the fact that he still wants the Tetsusaiga; it may no longer exist but in the young brat's soul, but it is still there and he wants it. He is happy enough with his Tenseiga reborn, however, and she knows this. Byakuya glances out his window again, as he watches Kurosaki, damn that Kurosaki, talk with Rukia in front of his division, as he catches her on the way inside. His eyes narrow, very slightly, at Ichigo, and he wonders if the mutt remembers him. He wonders if the mutt hates him still. They may not be brothers by blood any longer, but he didn't need to be raised with Ichigo Kurosaki to immediately recognize who it was, reborn. He could still practically smell the stench of mongrel blood from the moment he met him on the sidewalks of Karakura, and he wonders if Kurosaki was angry when the elder Kuchiki once again proved himself superior, just as he was when they were two youkai brothers trying to slay one another.

He wonders about the pride Kurosaki felt when he fought Byakuya himself to defeat. He wonders if Ichigo was angry that it took him three lifetimes to do it.

Sesshoumaru contemplates this, as he watches Inuyasha chat with his adoptive sister.


End file.
